The invention relates to a container, which can be closed by a lid, for receiving and compressing waste material, more particularly waste paper. The container can also be used for other kitchen waste and other easily deformable waste, such as thin sheet-metal packaging items, cardboard or plastics.
Hitherto waste has been deposited in a solid container, a wire basket, or in a stretch plastics bag. Some of these containers are open, while some of them are provided with a lid or flap. None of the containers can take more than relatively small amounts of waste unless the waste is compressed. This has the disadvantage that the waste containers must be emptied at short intervals, and public waster containers become overfilled, due to inadequate servicing, so that waste lies beside the container. This also applies more particularly to waste containers provided for the paper tissues used in many public lavatories and washrooms.
Apparatus for compressing the waste in a container are also known (e.g. German Offenlegungsschrift No. 19 23 396 or U.S. Pat. No. 3,696,737), in which a pressure plate in the container is moved by a mechanism, so as to compress the contents of the container. However, these prior art devices cannot satisfactorily solve the problems, particularly the problem of the overflowing of public waste containers, since on the one hand an adequate amount of waste cannot be accommodated in the container, and on the other hand special procedures which must be performed by trained operators, are required to compress the contents of the container.
It is an object of the invention to avoid the deficiencies of the prior art containers and provides a simply constructed container of the kind specified which calls for little maintenance and which can readily be operated, and in which several times the amount of waste can be reliably accommodated than was the case with the prior art.